The present invention relates to a document registration apparatus for use in a document processing system, and more particularly, for use in a document inserting station or a document queuing station.
Various document processing systems require that a particular edge of a processed document is aligned relative to a particular direction in the system. For example, enclosures which are to be inserted into an envelope should be aligned relative to the envelope prior to insertion in order to avoid processing difficulties. Furthermore, some documents which are to be transported away from a particular queuing station, to another adjacent document raceway, should be aligned at the queuing station relative to the raceway, in order to facilitate the processing of the documents.
Devices which register a particular edge of a document to a particular direction are known. However, these devices may suffer from a number of drawbacks. For example, some of these devices are subject to frequent mechanical failure because of the complex nature of their mechanical design. Document registration devices should be able to repeatedly process a great number of documents before repair or replacement is necessary.
Another drawback present in some known document registration devices is that it can be difficult to adjust the device to the proper alignment. In some designs which have multiple parts, for example, each of the individual parts must be aligned relative to each other in order for the overall apparatus to be properly aligned to a particular chosen direction. Furthermore, when the number of parts is large, alignment can also be time consuming.
A document registration apparatus which simultaneously aligns a stack of documents can also suffer from drawbacks associated with the mechanical design of the apparatus. For example, the method of removing the stack of aligned documents from some document registration apparatuses have resulted in undesirable "shingling" of documents where the top document in the stack is not directly above the lower documents but slightly shifted forward or backward. This can occur, for example, in some queuing stations when the exit pinch rollers are mounted in such a way that requires that the bulk of the queuing station to substantially move when a document stack exits the station.
In light of the above, it would be desirable to be able to provide a document registration apparatus which is not subject to frequent mechanical failure because of the nature of its mechanical design.
It would also be desirable to provide such a document registration apparatus where the number of mechanical parts is kept to a minimum.
It would further be desirable to provide such a document registration apparatus that is not difficult to adjust for proper alignment.
It would still further be desirable to provide a document registration apparatus which can simultaneously align a stack of documents without undesirable shingling of the documents when the documents exit the apparatus.
Additionally, it would be desirable to provide a document registration apparatus which allows easy access to jammed documents for removal thereof.